Graphic NovelGrades 4-7Identity & Belonging
Guts
by Raina Telgemeier
Pacing MaterialA graphic novel memoir about Raina's childhood struggle with anxiety and stomach problems, and how she learned to face her fears with help from therapy, friends, and her own inner strength.
Big Idea
Anxiety doesn't define you, and asking for help is a sign of strength, not weakness.
Discussion Questions
- 1.How does Raina's anxiety affect her daily life?
- 2.What strategies does Raina learn to manage her worries?
- 3.How does talking about her feelings help Raina?
- 4.What do you do when you feel worried or nervous?
Lesson Plan
⏱ 45 minutes📦 Envelopes or small boxes, index cards, markers, colored pencils
Learning Goals
- Understand what anxiety is and that it's a normal experience
- Identify healthy strategies for managing worry and stress
- Explore the importance of asking for help
- Develop empathy for others who experience anxiety
Activity Steps
- 1.Discuss how Raina's worries affect her throughout the book
- 2.Brainstorm strategies: deep breathing, talking to someone, journaling, exercise
- 3.Have students decorate a 'worry toolbox' envelope with their favorite strategies inside
- 4.Share strategies in small groups and practice one together
- 5.Discuss why it's okay to ask for help when we need it
Standards Connections
- ELA: RL.4.1 — Ask and answer questions about key details
- ELA: RL.4.2 — Retell stories, including key details
- ELA: RL.4.3 — Describe characters, setting, and events
- ELA: RL.7.6 — Acknowledge differences in characters' points of view
- ELA: SL.4.1 — Participate in collaborative conversations about the text
- ELA: W.4.3 — Write narratives recounting events with descriptive details
- SEL: Relationship Skills
- SEL: Social Awareness
- Art: VA:Re7 — Perceive and analyze artistic work
Pace-Write-Read Study with Pace-Write It!
Focus question: How does Raina Telgemeier use pacing in Guts to help readers feel anxiety, relief, and growth? In Guts, Raina Telgemeier tells the story of her childhood experiences with anxiety, stomach pain, friendships, and therapy through a graphic memoir style that feels immediate and personal. The pacing shifts between fast, panicky moments and slower, reflective scenes, helping readers experience how fear can interrupt daily life and how healing takes time.
| Element | How to notice or teach it in the novel |
|---|---|
| Pace | Read: Notice how Guts speeds up during Raina’s anxious moments, like when her stomach hurts or she worries about getting sick, and slows down during therapy conversations and reflections. Classroom Activity: Write a short scene about a worry you or a character has, using 3 fast sentences followed by 3 slower reflective sentences to control pacing. |
| Plot | Read: Track how the plot in Guts moves from Raina’s early stomach sickness to growing anxiety, friendship struggles, and finally getting support through therapy and self-understanding. Classroom Activity: Make a 5-part plot ladder for a memoir-style story about a personal challenge, showing where the problem grows, peaks, and begins to improve. |
| Prosody | Read: Listen to how the words and dialogue in Guts sound when read aloud, especially in nervous scenes where short phrases, repeated worries, and exclamations create a tense rhythm. Classroom Activity: Write 6 lines of dialogue for a character who is nervous, and read them aloud to revise for a realistic anxious sound. |
| Word pause | Read: Notice places in Guts where a single word, reaction, or short line makes the reader pause, especially when Raina feels embarrassed, scared, or unsure. Classroom Activity: Write a comic-style moment using one short sentence or one-word line to create an emotional pause. |
| Concept | Read: Notice how Guts develops the concept that anxiety is real, physical, and emotional, and that asking for help is part of strength and belonging. Classroom Activity: Write a theme statement about anxiety or belonging, then create a short memoir paragraph that shows that idea through action instead of explaining it. |
| Voice & World View | Read: Notice Raina’s honest, vulnerable, and often funny voice as she looks back on her younger self with empathy. Classroom Activity: Write a first-person paragraph about an embarrassing or difficult moment using a voice that is honest but kind to your younger self. |
| Setting & Place | Read: Notice how school, home, the bathroom, the car, and the therapist’s office each shape the mood in Guts, making some places feel stressful and others safer. Classroom Activity: Choose one everyday place and write how it feels different when a character is calm versus anxious. |
| Point of View | Read: Notice that Guts is told from Raina’s first-person memoir perspective, which lets readers experience her private fears from the inside. Classroom Activity: Rewrite a stressful moment first in first person and then in third person, and compare which version feels more immediate. |
| Original Characters | Read: Notice how Raina, her family, her friends, and her therapist each feel specific and believable, with their own reactions to anxiety and growing up. Classroom Activity: Create a character sketch for a supportive person in a memoir or realistic story, including how they speak, act, and help during a hard time. |
| Dialogue | Read: Notice how dialogue in Guts reveals friendship tension, family concern, and the careful support Raina receives in therapy. Classroom Activity: Write a conversation between a worried child and a trusted adult that shows concern without solving everything too quickly. |
| Details | Read: Notice the concrete details in Guts about stomach aches, school routines, food worries, and social situations that make Raina’s experiences feel real. Classroom Activity: Write a paragraph about a difficult day using at least 5 specific sensory or daily-life details. |
| Descriptions | Read: Notice how descriptions in Guts are brief but powerful, often supported by facial expressions and visual cues that show discomfort, fear, and relief. Classroom Activity: Describe a character’s emotions without naming the feeling directly; show it through body language and setting. |
| Strong First Lines | Read: Notice how the opening of Guts quickly pulls readers into a memorable, uncomfortable moment and signals that this story will be honest and personal. Classroom Activity: Write 3 possible opening lines for a memoir scene that begins with a surprising or uncomfortable event. |
| Immediacy & Engagement | Read: Notice how Guts makes readers feel close to Raina’s experiences through direct emotions, quick scene changes, and personal stakes around school, friends, and family. Classroom Activity: Write a short scene that starts in the middle of a problem so the reader feels immediate tension. |
| Story Scenes & Summaries & Unique Structures | Read: Notice how Guts mixes fully developed scenes with quicker summary moments to cover time and show how anxiety builds over many experiences. Classroom Activity: Write one detailed scene from a hard day and one 3-sentence summary of how similar days continued over time. |
| Flashback & Flash Forward & Cliffhangers | Read: Notice how Raina reflects on earlier experiences and how scene endings sometimes leave readers wondering what will happen next with her health, friends, or fears. Classroom Activity: End a memoir scene with a cliffhanger line that makes the reader want to keep going. |
| Tension & Suspense & Surprise | Read: Notice how Guts creates suspense from ordinary situations, like school, meals, and sleepovers, because readers know Raina fears getting sick or losing control. Classroom Activity: Write a scene in which an everyday event becomes tense because of what a character is afraid might happen. |
| Page Turns and Chapter Breaks | Read: Notice how page turns in Guts often reveal a new reaction, memory, or emotional shift, and how chapter breaks help organize Raina’s growth. Classroom Activity: Plan a 4-panel comic or 4-part prose scene and mark where a page turn or section break should come for the biggest effect. |
| Performance | Read: Notice how characters in Guts sometimes perform being fine in public even when they are upset inside, especially at school or around friends. Classroom Activity: Write a scene where a character says “I’m okay” but the narration shows they are not okay. |
| Personality | Read: Notice how Raina’s personality comes through as sensitive, creative, observant, and funny, even while she struggles with anxiety. Classroom Activity: Write a first-person character paragraph that shows personality traits during a stressful moment. |
| Humor | Read: Notice how Guts balances serious feelings with humor, awkwardness, and relatable family or school moments so the story stays approachable. Classroom Activity: Add one gentle, realistic humorous moment to a serious scene to make the voice feel more human. |
| Pause | Read: Notice the moments in Guts when the story pauses for a reaction, silence, or visual beat, giving readers time to feel Raina’s embarrassment or fear. Classroom Activity: Revise a scene by inserting one pause line or silent beat before an important realization. |
| Poetry and Poetic Devices | Read: Notice that even though Guts is prose in graphic form, it uses imagery, repetition, and emotional contrast in ways that can feel poetic. Classroom Activity: Write 4 lines of free verse beginning with “My worry is…” inspired by the feelings in Guts, then turn one line into prose for a memoir scene. |
| Repetition | Read: Notice how repeated worries, repeated stomach problems, and repeated social fears in Guts show how anxiety can loop in a person’s mind. Classroom Activity: Write a paragraph that repeats one key phrase 3 times to show a character’s growing worry. |
| Rhythm | Read: Notice the rhythm of Guts as it alternates between crowded stressful moments and calmer explanatory or reflective parts. Classroom Activity: Write 8 sentences that alternate short-long-short-long to create a shifting emotional rhythm. |
| Punctuation | Read: Notice how exclamation points, ellipses, question marks, and emphatic lettering in Guts help communicate panic, hesitation, and uncertainty. Classroom Activity: Rewrite the same line 3 ways using different punctuation to show calm, panic, and doubt. |
| Questions | Read: Notice how questions drive Guts: What is wrong with Raina? Will she get sick? Will friends understand? Can therapy help? Classroom Activity: Write 5 questions your character keeps asking during a difficult situation, then use 2 of them in a first-person scene. |
| Compare-Contrast | Read: Notice the contrast in Guts between public life and private fear, before therapy and after therapy, and moments of isolation versus belonging. Classroom Activity: Write a compare-contrast paragraph about a character before and after they get help with a problem. |
| Objects | Read: Notice how ordinary objects in Guts, such as food, bathrooms, school supplies, or comforting items, can carry emotional meaning because of Raina’s anxiety. Classroom Activity: Choose one everyday object and write how it becomes a symbol of worry or comfort in a memoir-style piece. |
| Threes | Read: Notice places where events, examples, or emotional beats in Guts could be grouped in threes to build emphasis, such as three worries, three hard moments, or three signs of support. Classroom Activity: Write a sentence or short paragraph that lists three related fears or three sources of comfort to build impact. |
| Whitespace & Negative Space | Read: Notice how the graphic novel format in Guts uses space between panels and uncluttered areas to slow the reader down and highlight emotion. Classroom Activity: Storyboard a 3-panel comic moment and decide where extra blank space would make the feeling stronger. |
| Art & Graphics | Read: Notice how Raina Telgemeier’s facial expressions, body language, panel size, and visual symbols in Guts help readers understand anxiety even without many words. Classroom Activity: Create a 4-panel comic or illustrated scene showing an emotional change mostly through expressions and posture rather than narration. |
| Interactives & Gamification | Read: Notice how readers of Guts can actively track emotional shifts, triggers, supports, and coping strategies as they read Raina’s story. Classroom Activity: Make a reading tracker with four categories—Trigger, Body Feeling, Thought, Support—and fill it in for one scene, then use it to write your own scene. |
Pace-Write It!
20-Minute Classroom Flow Read (5 min): Read a short section from Guts by Raina Telgemeier that shows Raina moving from an everyday moment into anxiety, then into reflection or support. Ask students to notice where the reading feels fast, where it slows down, and how the graphics and dialogue shape that pace. Notice (5 min): Discuss: What makes the anxious parts feel quick? What makes the reflective parts feel slower? Chart student observations such as short dialogue, repeated worries, facial expressions, pauses, page turns, and setting changes like school, home, or therapy. Write (7 min): Students write a short memoir-style scene about a small worry, embarrassment, or challenge. Writing frame: “At first, I was ________. Then ________ happened. My body felt ________. I kept thinking, ‘________.’ Everything seemed to speed up when ________. Later, things slowed down when ________. I began to understand ________.” Encourage students to include at least 1 repeated phrase, 1 pause line, and 2 specific sensory details. Share (3 min): Partners read their scenes aloud and identify one place where the pacing speeds up and one place where it slows down. Invite 1–2 volunteers to share how they used pacing to show emotion. Exit ticket: In 1–2 sentences, answer: How did Raina Telgemeier use pacing in Guts to help readers feel anxiety and recovery, and what is one pacing move you used in your own writing?
Classroom Activities
Worry Toolbox
Students create a personal 'worry toolbox' with strategies for managing anxiety, inspired by Raina's journey.
Worry Toolbox
Students create a personal 'worry toolbox' with strategies for managing anxiety, inspired by Raina's journey.
Create a free account to reveal this guide
Your free account includes one complete guide download — the full teacher’s guide, discussion questions, classroom activities, and the Pace-Write-Read writing workshop.
Discussion questions PWR workshop PDF download